City Trees by Jake Lau

In Shanghai and Beijing, city trees are planted in a similar fashion to trees in the US. That is to say that they choose a tree and plant it up and down every street. In Shanghai, the tree of choice is the Sycamore. You can tell how recently the street was built judging by the size and shape of the trees. The sycamores are pruned using the pollarding system. This allows the Chinese to control the form of the trees. The sycamore is a cool tree to be planted on the street. Even in the winter months, when the tree loses its leaves, the tree still looks pretty. Exfoliating bark is something that always catches my eye. So even though, sycamores might have been the only type of tree in Shanghai, I didn't get sick of seeing it.

In Beijing, there is more diversity of street plantings, but not by much. There are willows, Japanese Pagoda trees, and Gingko. I thought after seeing all the wonderful herbaceous plantings throughout the city that there wouldn't be this much of a monoculture of trees in the city. I am curious to what the Chinese are doing to prevent insects or diseases from wiping out these monocultures like what happened with the american elm and what will soon happen to Ash trees in the States. Good luck with that China, but I'd start planting some other trees soon.